Affliction
by ever6
Summary: Immediately Following The Escape. Friendship.


~Affliction~  
  
Ryan opened his eyes. The tile floor with marble-like designs below him hadn't changed since last time. Nothing had changed. Marissa was still behind a door they wouldn't allow him through. Seth was next to him, comforting, grasping, maintaining possession of Summer as if unknown forces would make her fade away, then become unreachable too. He was still sitting in an "upright fetal position" as Seth had worriedly pointed out earlier; elbows on knees, head cradled in elbows, same as 1 hour and 18 minutes ago, after they'd stopped him at that door.  
  
Nothing ever changed. He was still setting off chain reactions of misery for everyone he came into contact with. He closed his eyes and recalled the list of grievances in just the past few months: His moment of hesitation had sent his brother to jail. He'd brought conflict into the only family kind enough to help him. He'd caused his mom so much trouble that she didn't want him anymore. There was a shooting; but for a different direction of the wrist, a different angle in the struggle, one. INCH - it could have been Seth's life pooling in red on the floor. Dead. Seth. A house destroyed before it was finished being built; and don't forget driving Marissa straight to Luke via Gabrielle. Her unexpected wide-eyed anguish had branded him the enemy, guilt and regret scarring him to the core. And now this. If he'd told Seth no, they weren't going to Tijuana, and then ended the discussion, this would not, could not have happened. Everything he did, said or touched had a grim domino effect resulting in suffering and tragedy.  
  
His mom had been right when she'd reminded him countless hundreds of times over his 16 years that he was her curse. He was everyone's curse. An affliction.  
  
He had nodded and told them she did, yes - in the frantic disordered haze of getting her to a doctor. But he wasn't at all sure that she'd had a pulse. He thought he'd felt it, but it could have just been there, weak, because he wanted, desperately needed it to be.  
  
He didn't know how to stop the spread of his life, his affliction on others, but she shouldn't have to pay this price for his ignorance.  
  
He hadn't believed in God. Once, he'd heard someone sing that He loved the little children, yet Ryan had never seen Him when he was little and had cried, begging for someone, anyone to care. To give some attention that didn't bruise the skin or shatter a 6-year-old's innocence. Ryan was willing to look past that now, it didn't matter, and what did he know? Maybe he'd deserved it; hadn't his mom always said he was worthless, nothing but trouble? So he would ignore childhood, just in case God did exist, and right now he would pray that he hadn't been lying and Marissa had a pulse when he'd carried her in. And still did. And he would tell God that if He let her live, he would forever believe that He had been really busy with others more important when Ryan was small, or just looking the other direction. Now that he was older, he understood that was what teachers and school guidance counselors had been doing. He supposed God could have been too.  
  
He should leave the Cohen's, leave Seth, because he couldn't bear any more disasters his presence would surely bring to them. Not them. They actually wanted him to be a part of their family. That meant that they didn't think he was worthless, for some reason. And maybe he wasn't now that his childhood was long gone and he could take care of himself. But still, his curse remained.  
  
He felt Seth's hand on him, burning into his shoulder, and instinctively jerked away from it. There was a silent arc of hesitation, an irregular feel to the air.  
  
He heard Seth, seemingly from far away, begging him to look up, to please say something, but Ryan wouldn't speak. Couldn't.  
  
His feelings for the lanky kid next to him were confusing. He hadn't known him very long, but it seemed like Seth had been the only constant in Ryan's world for years. A distortion of time because Seth made up in importance for the lack of hours actually spent with him. He accepted Ryan, screwed up life and all, just like Ryan accepted him. Only he couldn't find anything bad about Seth that would even out, or for that matter, warrant the exchange. Somewhere along the line, he had been unfairly labeled. Seth was considered "unacceptable" in Newport society, and was reminded of it wherever he went. He had been continually subjected to cruel remarks, and eventually stopped trying to fit in. He was an outsider, living inside, like Ryan now. They clicked for more reasons than that, though. They understood very little about, and had a hard time even imagining each others' childhoods, but the end result of their diverse paths held much more common ground than not. Seth understood Ryan, and Ryan understood Seth. Seth was "talk" to Ryan's "walk", and they completely balanced each other out. They needed each other in unexpected ways, and Ryan was positive he'd never had a friend, or anyone really, that cared and wasn't afraid to show it like Seth did. He had a brother, but Trey had never argued with their mom to let Ryan stay those times she'd thrown him out. He had never disobeyed their mother by trying to sneak out, or then talked her into taking him to visit Ryan in the hospital, let alone someplace as awful as juvie. Sixteen years with Trey versus a couple of months with Seth, and it was no contest which one felt more like a brother to him.  
  
Since he'd come to the Cohen's, he had discovered that it wasn't 'always' much too difficult to talk about painful things or confess his fears, because Seth cared enough to listen, to really hear him; and he also cared enough to ask, six different ways if necessary, until Ryan talked. But also because Ryan felt, for the first time ever, like he could let down his guard.  
  
The last time they were in a hospital, after the shooting, Ryan had confessed his fear that his presence in Newport, his affliction, was making everyone's lives worse. Seth, in not so many words, had told him his life was better. Ryan had only given him a quick glance at the time, but later that night, alone in the pool house, he had allowed himself the luxury of remembering the emotion Seth's words had sparked in him. No one had ever said that to him. That he'd made a good impression on their entire life.  
  
Ryan opened his eyes. Something had changed. Shoes were directly in front of his own, blocking his view of the tile. Concentrating hard, he could just make out Seth's calm, reassuring voice repeating that none of this was his fault. This was not Ryan's fault. That everything would be ok, and he needed Ryan to look at him, to talk to him. He felt a hand squeezing his shoulder, and focusing on it, on that connection, he willed himself to lift his head and look up with agonized eyes at the boy crouching in front of him.  
  
"Seth."  
  
He felt warm arms go around him, and didn't pull away. 


End file.
